“Free
yourself from this insufferable, self-indulgent self-doubt! Wake up and see
that you already have the answers you need. We like to dwell in our choice and
make no decision, sometimes. We take a twisted pleasure in going back and forth
between our choices purely because we’re afraid to pick one. Why are you so
insecure? I should just give you a whack!” – said a Holy Man to me, this
weekend.
The
above is actually a censored version of the sage-wisdom I received about my
inability to make an important decision. I poured over mentors and books and
people - asking for advice and perspective; and subsequently accumulating a wealth of wise
opinions. But, perhaps, I forgot to ask the most important person for an
opinion – I forgot to really bear down on my own mind and squeeze out an answer
to the age old question: “What do you want?”
If
we all had the answer to this question, life would be a simpler way to pass the
time before we die. But it isn’t. Our insecure human nature sometimes drives us
to oscillate between our choices, hankering after and fermenting our
insecurities in the sordid pleasure of ‘option value’. We use phrases like, “Oh, I don’t know, but it
will be nice to have the option.”
Indecisive
folks alike will sometimes accumulate these options like the tazos of long ago,
and pour over the 150 ‘options’ in front of them with a gluttonous glimmer in
their eyes. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, though, when you want to
knock down a tazo tower – you can only hit with one shooter at a time.
I
think it takes a lot to make a decision truly for yourself; it takes a lot to
pull away from the crossroads and say ‘no’ to something and ‘yes’ to something
else – especially when neither choice is inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Not
everything is a dichotomous angel on the right shoulder situation; indeed,
morally questionable choices could perhaps be interpreted as easier to make
because we inherently have a distinction between good and bad, and right and
wrong – and if you don’t there are multiple religious texts set to guide us
along the spectrum of absolutely abhorrent and sinful versus righteous and
ideal.
Perhaps
the only consolation to making a decision is that it allows you to actually
walk the path. It allows you to move beyond the intersection and into the next
phase of growth – to be confronted again with more choices! I hope it becomes
easier. I hope I become braver in my decision making. I believe resilience and
strength of character will readily follow, regardless of the decisions we make:
because it is left to the individual to bear the consequences and to feel time
press slowly on her shoulder muscles as she is touched by the ever-winking tick
of the clock. Metaphors aren’t always as simple as the life they seek to
mirror.
